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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The civil war in the United States and the financial measures 

 taken by our Government had a temporary influence, first, to stimu- 

 late exports, and secondly, to discourage them after the primary 

 effect of an irredeemable paper currency had passed. The reaction 

 was such as almost to destroy the ability of the United States to 

 export wheat, and it was not till some years after the return of peace 

 that its wheat recovered its true position in the English market. 

 This course of the wheat trade was the most notable incident in the 

 history of that trade since 1860, and a few figures are given to show 

 its remarkable rise and fall. The comparison is of further interest 

 as developing apparent sympathetic fluctuations in the imports from 

 British North America and Egypt. The Canadian flow may be 

 accounted for by the conditions then prevailing in the United States, 

 but the Egyptian stands alone in its curious reflection of the rise and 

 fall in American export. 



In the period the need of England for foreign wheat increased, 

 and yet one of the best countries of supply was, to all purposes, taken 

 out of the race. In the five years (1861 to 1865) the average annual 

 import of wheat was 24,902,576 hundredweight, and from 1866 to 

 1870 it was 31,807,745 hundredweight. The quantity received 

 from Germany remained almost the same in the entire period, but 

 the failure of the United States was in part made good by Russia, 

 and in part by other countries of Europe, from which a small and 

 somewhat unusual supply had been counted upon in the years past. 

 The sudden appearance of these comparatively new sources of wheat, 

 and their equally sudden disappearance, mark the exceptional con- 

 ditions that gave them a temporary importance. 



* Fiscal years, from Commerce and Navigation, 

 f Calendar years, from English trade returns. 



